


After the Wormhole

by notjustmom



Series: Ironstrange [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bruce making him deal with things, Gen, Tony trying not to deal with things, and ice cream, mostly angst, post New York
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 13:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17407868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/pseuds/notjustmom
Summary: This is part of the Ironstrange verse where Stephen and Tony are married, but after the car accident, Stephen leaves for Kamar-Taj, and Tony becomes Iron Man, and goes through the attack in New York, canon to the Avengers movie. This is a scene I imagined would have happened between Tony and Bruce if Tony had been on his own after New York.





	After the Wormhole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scrub456](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrub456/gifts).



Tony opened the door to the house, and threw his keys on the table. He ran his fingers through his hair and wondered if he shouldn’t have tried harder to get Banner to stay with him instead of dropping him off at his loft in the city. But Banner’s place had missed being damaged by the battle, and he wanted, understandably to be home… battle? Is that what had happened today? Was it just today? He dropped onto the couch, and for the first time in a week, had time to breathe and think of Stephen, and wonder what he would have thought of today if he had been at home watching the city they loved collapse around them. And the Chitauri themselves - now that Tony had time to breathe, time to consider what had happened earlier in the day, he couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing was from start to finish.

“How was your day, Tony, do anything interesting today?”

“Oh, fine, just met up with some friends from work and we fought some really ugly aliens who came here from outer space, through a wormhole, because a god from Asgard was upset at being dethroned, and oh, yeah, I got the honor of flying a nuclear warhead fired at Manhattan by our government, through the wormhole in order to kill the ugly dudes. I made it back in one piece because this innocuous looking, brilliant scientist, who because of an accident with gamma rays turns into an enormous, dumb rage monster if provoked enough, caught me as I fell from the sky. Nice guy when unprovoked, but strong enough to catch a tin man, that would be me, falling thousands of miles, when pissed off. Did I mention he turns green, too? If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have believed it myself. Good, talking to yourself too, all good, yeah, good day.”

He snorted to himself, then slipped out of his shoes, and padded over to the liquor cabinet that he hadn’t touched since the day Stephen had left over a year ago… a year ago last week. He hadn’t heard a word, though after doing a bit of research had a good idea where Stephen had gone - his last resort, a rational, man of science had gone to what Tony could only describe as a faith-healer. 

They had tried everything, in those months after the accident, but even Tony couldn’t come up with anything that would have allowed him to go back to work, the lightest armor still was too heavy on his hands, but the biggest issue was that he had lost feeling in his fingetips, there was nothing anyone could do, and they both had known it, from the moment Stephen had opened his eyes and saw his hands, even he had known. And yet, Tony had spent weeks of sleepless nights trying to find something, anything that might work… his heart, fixed in a cave with a car battery and a magnet was easier to repair than Stephen’s hands, and it took months before Tony would admit that he couldn’t do a damn thing to help the most important person in his life. If he were honest with himself, as he chuckled humorlessly into his glass, in an empty house, he was surprised Stephen had stayed as long as he had. 

He nearly dropped his glass when he heard the doorbell ring, and turned to see Bruce standing at the door. “Dr. Banner, Sir.”

“Yes, Jarvis, I know, let him in.”  
“Sir.”

Bruce walked into the room and took the glass from Tony’s hand, and put it on the table, then took Tony by the hand and walked him over to the couch, sat him down, then sat down next to him. “Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Tony muttered at his feet.

“I should have tried harder to get you to stay. Today was - today was a lot -”

“Weird? Insane?”

“Yeah. And I shouldn’t have let you - I don’t even know how you got in your car and drove over here.”

Tony blinked at him. “How did you get over here?”

“Cab. Luckily he didn’t recognize me from the other guy -”

“I never thanked you, him - whatever for - hmm…”

“What were you thinking?” Bruce asked him suddenly.

“What was I thinking? When?”

“When you made the choice to attach yourself to a nuke and fly it up through the wormhole? What the fuck, Tony?”

“I - no one else volunteered?”

“Damnit, Tony.”

“We wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t.”

“No, probably not,” Banner mumbled at him. “Is it because of Stephen leaving?”

“What?”

“That you don’t give a fuck about what happens to you.”

Tony glared at his friend, then looked at his hands. “I can fix anything. Anything, Bruce. I can listen to a car and without opening the hood, I know what’s wrong with it. Dishwasher goes, I’m your man, I can hack into any server I want, and no one would know I was there. I fucking made myself into a fucking monster robot and blasted out of a fucking cave, with help from the guy who put a fucking electromagnet in my chest, and attached it to a fucking car battery, in order for me to live. Today... I saved New York City today, and may even have prevented an intergalactic war at least for now by attaching myself to a fucking nuke and flying it thousands of miles into space, through a fucking wormhole - which I never even believed existed until I had to go through one, but I couldn’t keep him from leaving me. I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t fix -”

“Tony.”

“Hell. I’m sorry, Bruce. Good talk. Thanks for stopping by.”

“No.”

“Sorry, what?”

“He didn’t leave because you couldn’t fix him, Tony.”

“He wouldn’t have left if I could have.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know him very well, but I saw how he was with you. Even I can tell when a guy is gone on someone. I think he loves you as much as he can love anyone, and yeah, I say loves, because he still loves you, and if he knew what you did today, and had a way to be here now, he would be here, telling you what a moron you are. But at least now I know why the big guy spit the bullet out. I thought about it, on my way over here. I survived so I could be there to catch you today, and to pull you out of whatever weird headspace you were in.”

Tony finally looked over at Bruce and snorted. “Bruce. You. You are the most logical person I know, you can’t possibly believe in something like fate -”

“Tony.”

“Bruce-”

“Look at us. I turn into a huge, dumb ass green rage monster whose instinct is to smash things and -”

“Catch stupid ass suicidal genius billionaires in tin cans from hitting the city street at a zillion miles per hour and yell at him till he decides to take the next breath.”

“Exactly, so if I choose to believe in fate, who are you to judge?”

Tony shook his head. “I miss him, Bruce, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if he doesn’t come back.”

“Tony. One day, when he’s ready, he’ll be back.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“I got some ice cream in the freezer.”

“Rocky Road?”

“Of course. Will you stay? I mean - just for tonight - I understand if you would rather be on your own -”

“Tony. After what happened today -”

“Ice cream?”

“Yep. Ice cream.”


End file.
